Upon returning to office Monday, President Donald Trump wasted no time in moving against one of his most frequent targets on the campaign trail: electric vehicles, and the Biden administration policies that contributed to their rise.
But undoing all of that will take more than just paperwork.
One of Trump’s many executive orders, titled “Unleashing American Energy,” commits to eliminating what the president falsely calls an “electric vehicle (EV) mandate” in order to “promote true consumer choice, which is essential for economic growth and innovation, by removing regulatory barriers to motor vehicle access.” The order also says Trump’s administration will consider ending what he calls “unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favor EVs over other technologies.”
However, the word “consider” may be doing a lot of heavy lifting in Trump’s order.
As industry experts, analysts and news outlets including the Detroit Free Press have noted, fully repealing the Inflation Reduction Act and its EV tax credits would need an act of Congress. Rolling back the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency emissions regulations driving more EV, hybrid and plug-in hybrid growth would also require a lengthy revision process complete with public hearings and other rulemaking processes.
Trump also ordered federal agencies to “immediately pause the disbursement of funds… including but not limited to funds for electric vehicle charging stations made available through the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program and the Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Discretionary Grant Program,” directly targeting funding for DC and AC public fast-charging. That move could leave the fast-growing charging industry in the lurch, including Tesla, one of the program’s biggest beneficiaries to date. Much of that funding had already been allocated to states, thanks in part to fast-tracked moves in the Biden administration’s final days in office.
Meanwhile, Trump could face opposition from elected officials within his own party who represent states that are seeing significant investments to build EVs in the U.S. For example, Hyundai’s new Metaplant in Georgia is the largest economic development project in that state’s history. Other beneficiaries of new EV- or hybrid-related investments include North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and more. This could be why the administration says it will merely “consider” ending certain pro-EV subsidies.
Trump’s use of the term “mandate” has historically referred to EPA rules that require automakers to significantly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of their new cars starting in 2027, with regulations so strict that they would ultimately need to have zero-emission vehicles account for some 30% to 50% of new car sales. Contrary to popular opinion—the term “mandate” was used to great effect on the campaign trail—there was never any sort of order that people be forced to buy EVs. Biden had set a non-binding goal of having 50% of all new vehicle sales be all-electric by 2030.
The strict fuel economy regulations, however, were helping to push domestic and foreign automakers to build and sell more EVs and batteries—including in North America, which would be the only way they would qualify for tax credits. In 2024, a record 8% of new car sales were all-electric. While the rate of electric car growth has slowed in recent years and not matched with automakers’ initially rosy expectations, EVs remain the fastest-growing new car sector. Hyundai and General Motors last year became the first automakers since Tesla to sell more than 100,000 EVs in a year in the U.S., and Ford also came close.
But EV advocates, environmental groups and even some automakers have argued that rolling back the Biden-era emissions and fuel economy standards runs the risk of putting the U.S. auto industry behind foreign competitors investing heavily into electrification. Indeed, about half of the new cars sold in Europe last year were hybrid, plug-in hybrid or electric, and China is projected to see EVs make up 50% of all new car sales this year. If automakers and related businesses in America ease up their EV plans—which they have already allocated $200 billion toward—they run the risk of being left behind the rest of the world.
As the Wall Street Journal noted today, many of Trump’s executive orders will likely face legal challenges in the coming weeks and months. Today’s orders do not offer any specific policy actions around emissions rules, EV tax credits or manufacturing incentives.
Perhaps more crucially for the auto industry, today’s executive orders avoided mention of tariffs that would almost certainly elevate the prices of new cars. Trump said on Monday his threatened tariffs on foreign goods (including cars) from Mexico, Canada and China will now be imposed on Feb. 1 instead of “Day One,” already walking away from a key promise he made on the campaign trail.
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